In television's infancy, Newton Minow writes in a new book, its creators "expressed their hope that the new medium would be the greatest instrument of enlightenment ever invented, a blessing to future generations. "They were wrong. Broadcasters and politicians have turned it instead into an instrument of child exploitation and abuse.

In television's infancy, Newton Minow writes in a new book, its creators "expressed their hope that the new medium would be the greatest instrument of enlightenment ever invented, a blessing to future generations. "They were wrong. Broadcasters and politicians have turned it instead into an instrument of child exploitation and abuse.

Re "Indecent Censoring," editorial, April 7: It's ironic that the term "vast wasteland" -- describing TV programming -- is from a speech in 1961 by then-Federal Communications Commission Chairman Newton Minow. The cultural landscape is even more desolate today. I support The Times' ideas: a cable rating system, media education (including V-chip technology) for parents and an a la carte plan for consumers of TV content. And, better yet, try TV Turn-Off Week, April 25 to May 1. I did seven years ago; my home has been wasteland free ever since.

December 30, 1988 | JOHN VOLAND, Arts and entertainment reports from The Times, national and international news services and the nation's press

From our Newton Minow Memorial Wasteland report: An inmate who says the state of Wisconsin is turning prisoners into TV addicts has failed in a bid to have TV sets banned in the state's penal facilities. "Wisconsin prisons are chock-full of inmates who are completely addicted to television, soap operas and all," Adrian Lomax, an inmate at an Oshkosh prison, said in a letter to the Milwaukee Journal. But warden Don Gudmanson rejected the complaint filed Nov.

Walter Cronkite is leaving CBS' board of directors. A spokeswoman for the former news anchorman said the decision was not connected with the network's new round of layoffs. The company Friday reported a 73% drop in profit for the first quarter and said it will cut 400 jobs in a cost-saving measure. The spokeswoman said both Cronkite and former Federal Communications Commission Chairman Newton Minow had decided not to seek new terms on the board when their present terms expire in May.

No one can quarrel with Newton Minow's urgent pleas that television networks improve children's programming. ("Fighting the Good Fight for TV, Again," Calendar, Sept. 16). But he loses his credibility when he chastises broadcasters for "hiding behind the First Amendment." The First Amendment prohibits government censorship. Minow argues that efforts to force networks to develop less violent and more educational programs do not amount to government censorship. But then he turns around and endorses proposals to empower the Federal Communications Commission (that's the government )

Lee Loevinger, 91, a Washington lawyer who in the 1960s was chief of the Justice Department's antitrust division and a member of the Federal Communications Commission, died April 26 of heart disease at a hospital in the nation's capital. As assistant attorney general, he was part of "the exclusive triumvirate" of antitrust enforcement, according to a Newsweek report at the time. The other two members were Atty. Gen. Robert F. Kennedy and then-Deputy Atty. Gen.

Reacting to the high school slaughter in Littleton, Colo., Time Warner Chairman Gerald Levin on Tuesday called for an end to the "proliferation of guns" and condemned the politicians he says have used the tragedy to grandstand about the corrosive effects of the media on American values. "This is the season of political opportunism," Levin said in a speech to the Hollywood Radio and Television Society at the Regent Beverly Wilshire Hotel.

Squaring off against the computer industry and one of television's most legendary critics, TV broadcasters told the Clinton administration they will oppose any White House effort to appoint computer executives or former regulator Newton Minow to a blue-ribbon panel that will recommend what public service rules should be imposed on operators of digital TV stations.

First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton on Friday called on the news media to use more positive images of people, saying that children cannot protect themselves from increasing sensationalism and violence on the news. "Children can't cope with much of what they see" on television, she said. A steady diet of stories about children being murdered or priests who molest children tends to desensitize young viewers and "prevent them from developing emotionally and psychologically," she said.